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HW2 Mission 10

Just an in-brief comment. There is something that works quite well against Keepers. Scouts with EMP. Retire ALL of your fighters and put out 14 Scouts. Group them all together. When you EMP the enemy, it knocks the Keeper out for 30 seconds. This is compared to 10-30 seconds of it teleporting out.

Next, the only corvettes you want are Pulsar Corvettes. You can toy with Minelayers if you want... but the Keepers teleport around and the chances of them finding a minefield are... slim. I'd rather have a few more Pulsar Corvettes. Use THESE to take out Keeper Drones.

Third, a large (8+) group of Torpedo Frigates is useful as their torpedos work well against Keeper Drones. Meanwhile, you want to have AT LEAST 4 Destroyers, and 8+ Resourcers who have the job of patching up your Destroyers. Anything smaller than a Destroyer will vaporize under the Keeper's mega-attack. And you're not facing one or two Keepers. You're facing up to four. Initially you'll face two. But when the Great Harbor Ship Bentus emerges from Hyperspace... well, then the Keepers will come out in force.

(BTW, just a personal note - I saved the game after destroying the first Keeper and waited for the Harborship to arrive. Then I returned to my old savegame point and IMMEDIATELY started moving the Dreadnought to that location - the sooner it gets there and docks with the Bentusi, the better - and if it docks immediately then it'll take seven minutes to get repaired fully. So transit time counts.)

Scout note: Keep Scouts on passive tactics. As SOON as they EMP a Keeper, dock them. It takes THEM 30 seconds to recharge... but if they dock and then launch, then it takes a lot less time. Spread them out to several platforms (Carriers, Shipyard, MS) so they dock and launch faster - use pause to do this.

You cannot destroy the Keepers. However, after the Dreadnought is restored, it can fire on the Keepers as well, and one shot reduces an enemy by 20% health. Keep attacking until 3 Keepers phase out. Then the Bentusi will kamikaze themselves.

Unfortunately they didn't give you their Hyperspace core, so I'm afraid you have to go BACK next mission to retrieve it.

You're going to get your butt kicked on this mission. I lost my Vaygr BC I so deservedly earned in the previous mission. Grrr. The thing to keep in mind is what the Keepers are attacking. I knew I couldn't save my BC, but as soon as Keepers started attacking my Shipyard, I focus ALL fire on it until it phased out.

All in all, I lost all my frigates, a couple destroyers, my BC, and a bunch of strike craft. However, on the next mission, you get ample time to rebuild and max out your fleet, so don't worry.

Unfortunately theres not a lot of Strategy in this mission, its more a meat grinder, ang congrats, you're the cow.

Tricks to the mission, keep Torpedo Frigates and Pulsar Corvettes pumping out of the construction bays. Simple as that. If you're having trouble you can move your entire fleet towards Bentus, but you'll likely see more concentrated attacks on your construction yards if you do so. Remember to concentrate on Keepers attacking Bentus and Dreadnaught.

On the plus side if you survive you get a very interesting story advancement, and a good laugh when Fleet Intelligence tells you the enemy is getting MORE powerful with every jump [d'oh!]

It should be fairly easy to go through this mission without losing any ships.
I used my 5 squads of scouts to emp the Keepers and then attack them with frigattes, bombers and destroyers. The corvettes took out the drones... Mind you, I have fire control towers on everyhting.
Apart from that I thought it was a little lame of reusing everything from mission 8.

Another trick to try is using defence field frigates. The field effectivly blocks the Keepers Ion beam attack while the field is up which can really save a lot of precious health. However it only works before the keeper fires its beam. IE the beam will stop once it contacts the field. Onces the beam is going started the field can't stop it. Its useful nonethaless.

I found using just the dreadnought, my 5 destroyers, 10 movers, about 10-15 resource collecters, and ion/gun platforms worked.

Ok the first time I did this mission I lost each and every one of my frigates, and the ones replacing them. So I replayed the mission like so:

1. At the beginning, select all of your frigates and send them far far away from your battlegroup. I also docked ALL of my strike craft. At this point I had 5 destroyers, 2 carriers, 10 movers, a MS (duh.), and 10 rescourcers. Knock the 2 Keepers out of existence using the destroyers and movers. Use the resource collectors to repair damaged ships. Set your MS, carrier(s), and shipyard on F4 (aggressive) so they put out the maximum defensive fire from their gimballed guns.

2. Move all of your ships (minus the frigates) to the Bentus. Place your ships on one side of the Bentus. You'll find that the keepers leave your frigate force alone as long as they are far away from the MS, Bentus, and shipyard. Leave the frigates there. You don't need them for this mission. Now, have any ships capable of building gun platforms build about 5-10 platforms per major unit. I had my MS, a carrier, and the shipyard make about 5 gun/ion platforms each. I didn't give them a move order; rather, I had them go along with the ship that made them.

3. Get your big guys to the Bentus as fast as your can. The 4 Keepers will attack whether the Dreadnought is docked with the Bentus or not. Dock most of your collecters while the Dreadnought is being repaired. The keepers and drones will take pot-shots at them. You'll probably have to replace the platforms and some collectors...a small price to pay.

4. Once the dreadnought is fixed, have it go after any of the Keepers attacking the Bentus. Continue to use your movers (in one strike group) and your destroyers (another strike group) to attack the Keepers. Ignore their drones. Undock and liberally use the PAUSE button to micromanage your collectors for repair operations. You can also launch your corvettes to hunt drone if you want at this time since they present a low-priority target to the Keepers/drones although I just kept them docked.

5. Keep pumpin out platforms to replace the ones you lose. KEEP your frigates far away and out of the fight and they'll be left unmolested. Replacing lost platforms is cheaper than replacing lost frigates. Soon enough you'll be able to force 3 of the Keepers out of existence and the mission ends.

I lost a total of about 8 collectors and about 12 platforms, but none of my destroyers, frigates, or strike craft.

I came in fully loaded, and pumped out torp frigs as they got killed. These were the only th ings that had worked well against themovers for me at Karos. Not all that difficult- I didn't need to save at all, really.

EMP

This was the ez est mission eva I only lost 1dd
in the beggining split up u're main b group into 2 forces
1 is all strik craft and naught
other is everythin else
in the everythin else group u need all resourcers and 2 ddfs
set up a nice wall with ddf's behind and resourcers on the ready 2 rrepair
use torps for anti drone power while everythin else hits the keeper
the dff's should keep your fleet safe and in case u screw up your resourcers should keep them alive and well
in your strik craft group u need all 12 pulses to really kill those guys and u shuld have all 14 bombies tooo to hurt the Keepers fast
Wen I did this I lost like nuthin and the keepers couldnt get to ms without h-spacein out
wen bentus comes dock strik craft
as soon as repairs are done set up strik craft on one side of ms-bentus and fleet on other
after this your naught should no longer stay with strik craft group but hover over bentus in case any attacks get through
keep doin this and u should have almost no losses

I drove off the fist two or so Keepers, and began to move my fleet tword where the Bentus was going to show up. All the while, no Keepers. I started beefing up and rebuilding my fleet, and still no keepers. The Bentus jumped in, and still nothing. Docked the Dread and STILL no movers. Had my whole force built up, ion platforms in position for my gauntlet. The Dread was repared, and still I wated. Finally, a keeper shows up. I drive him off easily. Two more show up, and I drive them off. Then three. Drove them off easily. Finally, one lone one shows up, and the Bentusi take care of things. All in all I lost nothing and left with a huge fleet and a truck load of RUS.

Something obvious that hasen't been mentioned. Focus fire. Always focus everything you have on one keeper at a time.
If you split your forces evenly among them (worst case scenario) 4 keepers will do 4*t*dp damage (t= seconds to destroy one keeper with 1/4 of your force, dp = damage potential of a keeper per second). If you focus fire you will take only 2.5*t*dp damage.

make 20 ion plats and position them between your starting position and where bentus will arrive. Then start moving all your ships towards the Bentus exit point too. this way you always have all keepers within range of your plats (focus fire them, too!). and the DN will be in a good position for a short trip.

using bombers, (movers if you feel like it), pulsars, DDs and lots of torpedo frigates (I use a 2/1 torpedo/flak split for this mission) you can take the keepers out fairly easy without losses. FCTs on everything are a must. monitor the health on your bombers/pulsars and don't forget to dock squads as soon as they turn yellow. 20 collectors on repair are nice.

total losses in this scenario: a handfull of collectors and a couple of ion plats at most.

Flaks and ints don't do much in thsi level (neither against drones nor against keepers).
by this level enough resources should be available to you to retire unfit ships and build better ones. this is not HW1 where you needed to scrimp and save - here you can match your fleet towards the threat (indirectly this saves RUs. You lose some in the retirement/rebuild phase, but since you don't lose any unfit ships in the engagement itself this actually saves you RUs in the long run)

if you go for plats keep them together and place them between MS and bentus. they have fantastically long range and this way all will be able to fire on every keeper, no matter where it is.

since the patch ion plats are not effective against drones (and fighters) anymore. they miss most of the time. but since the drones pose no real threat (ignore them) going for gun plats is not necessary.

rmrmber: always focus on one keeper at a time and keep those resourcers on repair!

I came into this mission with nothing but the Dreadnaught and the Mothership. So I guess that's why I didn't face a really big groups of enemy. I was able to finish this mission with ease using movers, bombers, gunships, the scouts with EMP and the Dreadnaught. If you EMP a keeper, it won't be able to escape and then you can use the Dread and the destroyers to kill it easily. The keepers weren't able to touch the Bentus when I played this mission. Unfortunately, the linear story line made it impossible to save the Bentus eventhough I was doing a good job protecting it.

I try to capture the Battlecruiser that attacks you, but when the marine frigs are done "boarding" they fly away and the Battlecruiser is still not under my control. The same thing happened when I tried to board the shipyard. Does anyone have any idea why I cant board the BC?

Intelligence on Mission
Difficulty of this mission (including but not limited to the Keeper's health and firepower, Dreadnaught's repair time, and the Keepers pain tolerance) is calculated based on your forces: The less the size of your starting fleet, the easier the mission will be. Nevertheless, you can produce a large fleet in the time provided.

Mission data indicates: If the total RU worth of your starting fleet is less that 0.8 of the Keeper's, then the Dreadnaught's repair will take 300 seconds (5 minutes) and Keepers will play easy. If this amount is between 0.8 and 1.4, then the Dreadnaught's repair will take 420 seconds (7 minutes) and Keepers will play more difficult. If the worth is more than 1.4, then the Dreadnaught repair will take 600 seconds (10 minutes) and the Keepers will play most difficult.

RU worth of each Keeper is 1500. Each Attack Drone worth is 2000 RU. According to mission data, the initial keeper fleet consists of 4 Keepers and 12 Attack Drones. Therefore, the estimated fleet of Keepers worth would be 30000 RU.

Keepers in this mission have the strongest armor of Homeworld 2. However, Dreadnaught's Phased Cannon Array is extraordinarily effective against this type of armor. It's damaging power against a Keeper is 6x the damage it causes against an unarmored ship like a Mobile Refinery. This could have been a good news if Keepers' health in medium difficulty wasn't 1260000 points.

somthings wrong with this mission, i put the dreadnaught directly above where the health bar arrow/line thing points on the bentus then tell it to dock...so it heads back to the mothership and docks with it...

and the other thing is i have 14 scouts EMP a keeper at once and it still jumps away when at 1/3 health eventhough the emp bar is maxed

somthings wrong with this mission, i put the dreadnaught directly above where the health bar arrow/line thing points on the bentus then tell it to dock...so it heads back to the mothership and docks with it...

That's what should happen, and I don't see how something is wrong.

and the other thing is i have 14 scouts EMP a keeper at once and it still jumps away when at 1/3 health eventhough the emp bar is maxed

That's also exactly what should happen. Keepers will not be destroyed by your puny weapons.

Just keep fighting the good fight and the mission will end eventually.

If you ever find brute force doesn't solve anything, you haven't used enough.